What comes out is what defiles

 

In Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 Jesus teaches that the people of God are not set apart by particular religious traditions or ethnicity, but by what comes from the heart, characterized by love for others. We do not need more religion, but more reflection on what proceeds from our heart. Yes, traditions can be good, and can help point us and others closer to God. However, they can also send subtle or explicit messages that say "you don't belong."

Jesus challenged the purity “laws” and turned them upside down. In their place he substituted a radically alternate social vision. The new community that Jesus announced would be characterized by compassion for everyone, not based on external compliance to a purity code and egalitarian inclusivity.

"No outcasts," writes Garry Wills in What Jesus Meant, "were NOT cast out far enough in Jesus' world to make him shun them — not Roman collaborators, not lepers, not prostitutes, not the crazed, not the possessed. 

“Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile…from within come evil thoughts and they defile.”

Who do we judge when we sanctimoniously spurn those who are not like us or not part of our group? (Bible Study Blog, Bob Reina, August, 28, 2012)

To Whom Can We Go?"

Are you Leaving or are you staying?

In John 6:60-69, the followers of Jesus have heard words they do not understand. They are repelled! It simply is impossible to believe that Jesus is inviting them to eat his flesh and drink his blood…so, many of those who had followed Jesus up to this point, now walk away. They have reached an obstacle in their belief which they cannot overcome.  

It is not difficult to imagine Jesus' sadness as he watched them leave… Fearing that he was going to be completely abandoned, he turns to the twelve apostles and asks them what they are going to do...Peter speaks for them and us when he responds “Master to whom can we go?”

We do all that we can in life to avoid being placed in position of vulnerability, yet in this gospel we have the twelve willing to be vulnerable by surrendering control and choosing complete dependency on Jesus. That dependency reveals an ultimate statement of faith: Lord, we have no options. We have no choice but to keep following you. 

Faith is deepened in situations where self-reliance is no longer possible, a place in which it is difficult to rely on intellect, reason or abilities. Faith is the willingness to let go of "conventional wisdom" and listen to a voice within. 

The ability to listen to what Jesus is saying to each of us and then asking whether we are going to continue following him is part of our spiritual journey. For most of us, it can happen many times in our lifetime when we are challenged to acknowledge that we must leave the "training wheels" of religion and grow into a personal deep-rooted knowing, and ask, if not to you than to whom do I turn? In end our response has to be personal…walk away…or stay and delve deeper into the mystery. ( adapted from Tuesday, August 21, 2012 Bible Study Blog by Bob Reina)

Lost and Found

 

The Prodigal Son, is among the most recognized parables in the New Testament, (Luke 15:1-32). While there are several important themes for us to consider in the reading, the most prevalent focuses on the father and the so-called “faithful son.” Paradoxically, the prodigal son is a secondary character in the story as it relates to Jesus’ purpose in telling it.

The father characterized in the story, represents an individual whose unconditional love seems to exceed the “normal” bounds of human understanding. It’s hard to imagine a typical father or any human being for that matter, who is capable of acting with such selfless compassion and understanding.

In contrast to the father’s behavior, the reaction of the elder brother, who remains behind and steadfastly adheres to his father’s will in performing his day-to-day chores, seems all too human with regard to the homage paid to his wayward brother. He finds that he cannot or is unwilling to rejoice in the return of his delinquent brother.

 In this story Jesus reveals that the love of God surpasses all our understanding and exists in a dimension beyond anything known to man. That love is evidenced in the scene in which the father rushes out to greet the Prodigal without inquiry into his derelict behavior or his intention to repent. The father makes no inquiry into his past and  merely rejoices in his return and orders a celebration in honor of his homecoming.

But the elder son, who professes to be more worthy of the father’s love is angry and resentful. After all wasn’t he the more faithful and dutiful son who without fanfare, quietly went about his father’s business?

So, to whom do we relate…the father, the elder son, or the Prodigal? What about the reaction of the community to the father’s behavior?

 Richard Rohr writes that “Almost all religion and cultures that I know of have believed that sin and evil are to be punished and that retribution is to be demanded of the sinner in this world—and usually the next world, too. Such retributive justice is a dualistic system of reward and punishment characterized by good guys and bad guys, makes perfect sense to the ego…Mere counting and ledger-keeping is not the way of the Gospel. Our best self wants to restore relationships, and not just blame or punish. The trouble is that we have defined God as ‘punisher in chief’ instead of Healer, Forgiver, and Reconciler and so the retribution model was legitimized down through the ages…

On the other hand, the aim of restorative justice is to return the person to a useful position in the community. Thus, there can be healing on both sides. Such justice is a mystery that only makes sense to the soul…and yet the term restorative justice has only awakened our social consciousness in the last few decades. How can we deny that there is an evolution of consciousness, even consciousness of where the Gospel is leading us?” (Richard Rohr, Restorative Justice, Center for Action and Contemplation. 6/12/18)

 

 

 

Who is My Neighbor

 

 

The Parable of The Good Samaritan is one of the most beloved gospel stories in the Bible. The story (Luke 10:25-37) tells of a man who is savagely beaten and robbed in going from Jerusalem to Jericho and given up for dead in a ditch. A priest and a Levite pass by without helping him. But a Samaritan stops and cares for him, taking him to an inn where the Samaritan pays for his care. The parable’s overarching theme teaches that enemies can have compassion for enemies; compassion has no boundaries, and that judging people on the basis of their religion or ethnicity can leave us dying in a ditch. 

So who were the Samaritans, really? We are told that they were not just outcasts. They were the despised enemies of the Jews. So in this parable in which Jesus’ audience would have expected a Jew to be the hero of the story, they were likely shocked to hear that it was a Samaritan instead. Only by understanding this pivotal paradox does the powerful message of the parable come through for them then and us today.

Scripture scholar James Martin defines a parable as a “metaphor or a simile drawn from nature or common life arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application in order to tease it into active thought.” He goes on to explain that parables are poetic explanations of spiritual concepts impossible to comprehend fully. For example the reign of God is far too rich to be encompassed by any one definition, no matter how theologically accurate. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, a man from a hated ethnic group was ultimately revealed to Jewish listeners as the good guy who cares for the stranger. As with this parable, many run counter to the expectations of the audience and therefore are subversive to “conventional wisdom.” (Martin, p 200)

The lesson in this parable springs from an answer to a question posed to Jesus by a lawyer, likely an expert in the Mosaic Law and not a court lawyer of today. The lawyer’s question was, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus takes this opportunity to define what His disciples’ relationship should be to their neighbors and in typical fashion, Jesus answers the question with a question.  “He asks ‘What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?’" By referring to the Law, Jesus refers the man to an authority they both would accept as truth, the Old Testament. In essence, He is asking the lawyer, what does Scripture say about this and how does he interpret it? In so doing Jesus avoids an argument or being “trapped” and puts Himself in the position of evaluating the lawyer’s answer instead of the lawyer evaluating His answer.  

The lawyer answers correctly and Jesus acknowledges that he has given an orthodox answer, but doesn’t stop there. He tells him that this kind of love requires more than an emotional feeling; he would need to “practice what he preached.” As an educated man the lawyer realized that he could not possibly keep this law, nor would he have necessarily wanted to. There would always be people in his life that he could not love. Thus, in an effort to limit the law’s command by limiting its parameters, he asks the question “who is my neighbor?” The word “neighbor” in the Greek means “someone who is near,” and in the Hebrew it means “someone that you have an association with.” This allows for a limited interpretation of neighbor as fellow Jew and would have excluded Samaritans, Romans, and other foreigners.  

Jesus uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to correct the lawyer’s limited definition of “neighbor” and corresponding duty to his neighbor. By ending the encounter in this manner, Jesus wants us to follow the Samaritan’s example in our own lives in that we are to show compassion and love for those we encounter in our everyday activities. We are to love others regardless of their race or religion. As for reaching out to help, the criterion is need. If they need and we have the supply, then we are to give generously and freely, without expectation of return. This is a seemingly impossible obligation for the lawyer, and often for us. We cannot always keep the law because of our human condition; our heart and desires are mostly of self and selfishness. Our ego strives to keep us in our comfort zone and not get involved. 

Thus, the lessons of the Parable of the Good Samaritan are three-fold: (1) we are to set aside our prejudice and show love and compassion for others. (2) Our neighbor is anyone we encounter; we are all creatures of the creator and we are to love all of mankind as Jesus has taught. (3) Keeping the law in its entirety with the intent to save ourselves is an impossible task; we need help, and Jesus is all too eager to be there for us. (based on Matt Slick, Grace Bible College)